


Simon Snow and the Mage's Heir

by Setkia



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: 1st year, Baz is A Terrible Roommate, Everything is Friendship Cause They're 11 People, Orphan Simon Snow, Penelope is Awesome, Simon has anxiety, as usual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-20 09:58:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13144266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setkia/pseuds/Setkia
Summary: “Aleister Crowley, the saviour of the World of Mages knows nothing about magic.” Basilton seemed very amused.Simon didn’t understand. He felt like he had walked into a completely different world. Normals? World of Mages? The night before hadn’t been full of too many explanations, he felt like he was being thrown into a river and told to swim by figuring it out as he went along. What was all this “saviour” stuff? And rumours? Simon had barely been at Watford and there were already rumours about him?“Are you sure you’re even a magician?”No, thought Simon. I’m not.Orphan Simon Snow is in for a shock when someone known as The Mage turns up and whisks him off to Watford, a school for magicians. It’s bad enough that he can barely stand his roommate, Basilton, but he hasn’t got the slightest idea what this Humdrum thing is, or why everyone is so hushed about it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own this. So I thought, in honour of Simon and Baz's CANON relationship, I'd try my hand at writing Simon Snow. I hope you guys like it. It's not SUPER exciting since there's no romance, but like, they're 11. So give them a break, alright?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon used to dream about being adopted one day. Maybe someone would want him. He used to make sure he was well-dressed, and that he had manners. He would make an effort not to seem like a slob, and though he couldn’t do anything about his slowly increasing age, he could show them that he wasn’t that much trouble, you’d barely even notice he was there.
> 
> Except for the fires.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

He didn’t answer.

“This is the third time this week.”

“They were asking for it.”

“Simon.”

The small boy looked at the administrator through his fringe. She was tired, like she had been doing her job for too long and really needed a break. It was understandable, she probably saw him more often than any other orphan.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

Simon knew that. He also knew there was no way he was apologizing to the ones who had tried to beat him up just because he wouldn’t look them in the eyes when they spoke to him. Simon didn’t feel comfortable looking people head-on, and it wasn’t his fault. They shouldn’t have tried to force him. It was easier to make his knee meet their groins than his eyes to meet their faces.

“What am I going to do with you, Simon?”

“I dunno ...”

“Don’t mumble, young man.”

“Sorry, m’am.”

“And for goodness sake, look at me when I’m talking to you!”

Simon forced his chin up, but he couldn’t make himself look straight at her. She was too large, too intimidating to him. Her nails were long and stained with blood (it couldn’t be nail polish, it just couldn’t be) and he didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he just clenched his fist around his red ball.

“It can’t continue like this.”

Simon wondered if they could kick him out of the orphanage for unruly behaviour before he was eighteen. He had no doubt that someone wanted to do it, had probably asked the board about it. _“That damn kid, Snow, we have to get rid of him,”_ was one of the many things the ones in charge of the place probably said every time they got together for a meeting.

The woman inhaled deeply before exhaling slowly. She frowned. “Have you been smoking again?”

Simon had given up on telling them that he didn’t smoke, they never listened. Everyone had a scent; one that encompassed them. The woman behind the desk scolding him smelt like a citrusy explosion that made him nauseous, the boys who had beat him up all smelled like gasoline, or something else that was toxic and full of chemicals. Simon smelt like smoke.

She sighed heavily. “Just go. We can have this discussion some other time.”

They wouldn’t. He knew they wouldn’t. They liked to ignore him for extended periods of time until they couldn’t anymore. Since no one knew what to do with him, they always gave up and pushed things aside until the next disaster came, before pushing that aside too.

“Yes, m’am.”

Simon left the room in silence and went outside.

He always liked it better outside. There was more air. More room to breathe. It was always stuffy in the cramped quarters, and if he ignored the gates and pretended they weren’t there, it almost felt like a normal backyard.

Wiping his mouth of the dried blood, Simon tried to close his right eye properly. It wouldn’t shut.

So the guys _did_ do something to him.

He didn’t really think about it too much. He was used to it.

Simon used to dream about being adopted one day. Maybe someone would want him. He used to make sure he was well-dressed, and that he had manners. He would make an effort not to seem like a slob, and though he couldn’t do anything about his slowly increasing age, he could show them that he wasn’t that much trouble, you’d barely even notice he was there.

Except for the fires.

Simon couldn’t explain it, but wherever he went, things would explode. He didn’t know _why_ , but they did, and he always smelt like smoke, so if people didn’t think he was giving himself lung cancer at a young age, they thought he was a pyromaniac. He wasn’t. He hated fire, after having it follow him everywhere, no matter where he went. Just when he thought he could get comfortable, something would catch fire and they’d send him back.

Simon had accepted that no one wanted a matchstick for a kid. He didn’t know what he’d do once he was no longer able to be under the orphanage’s care (as terrible as that care was), but until then, he realized that not being taken in was the best thing for him. It gave you too much hope.

“Hey look! It’s the SS Loser!”

Simon wished the kids knew better insults. If he was going to be called names, they should at least be good ones.

The freckled boy was stopped in his tracks by a large body. He stared down at their shoes.

“Why don’t you look at me, huh, Frosty? Think you’re above me?”

Simon didn’t have anything to say, so he kept quiet.

“Oh, got a toy?” Someone grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back.

_Don’t look up._

Simon bit his lip.

_Don’t cry._

His small stress ball was ripped from his hands suddenly and Simon’s world started spinning. He could feel something like anxiety crawling up his throat.

“Hey, are you a dog?” one of the boy’s leered.

_Don’t say anything._

Simon had no advantage and he knew it. He was small. He couldn’t fight. At best, he’d land one solid punch with the element of surprise, and then all was lost. He had to stop this, if not to avoid speaking to the administrator, than for the sake of his ribs.

“Oi. I’m talking to you, Yeti!”

_Just. Don’t._

He didn’t move.

“I said, _are you a dog_ , Snow White?”

Simon bit the inside of his cheek. He could hold out, if he just didn’t move, then they’d get bored. They always got bored of him.

Silence stretched out between the boys.

Simon’s neck was cold. He really wished he had a scarf. Or clothes that fit him, for that matter.

“Be a good boy, and fetch!”

Instantly, Simon’s world plunged into chaos.

He struggled to escape their grip, twisting, flailing desperately as they laughed.

He _needed_ the ball back, it was his stabilizer, he needed it to get him through the day-

“So you _are_ a dog. Someone should get you on a leash, let you know your place.”

Simon was getting angry. It wasn’t a good thing, it was never a good thing. When he got angry, that’s when— 

“Shit, were those sparks?”

Ah yes.

When Simon Snow got angry, the fires started.

Using the bully’s surprise against him, Simon elbowed him in the gut and slipped out of his grasp. He was pretty sure the reason they released him was because his skin was becoming too hot for them to hold, like he was burning through his clothes, which was always a problem with Simon.

He ran, tripping over his own feet, his laces too long, his shoes too big. It was hard enough that the ball was small, but it was _red_ and the leaves had started to fall so it was almost impossible to see it, or differentiate it.

He fell, scraping his knee on a discarded, broken beer bottle. He ignored the stinging sensation.

He looked up.

_There._

His ball was stuck in the rings of one of the tall fences that surrounded the perimeter. The type of fence that always made him feel like he was in a high security prison, only living under worse conditions.

Simon hooked his fingers into the barbed wire, the cold air slicing at his skin. He began to climb, pushing away the pain in his leg. It didn’t matter. He just needed his ball back. Each time he pulled his weight up, the wire would dig more into his palm until it finally cut through his skin and he started bleeding.

The cold air made the cut sting and he lost his footing. The sight of blood on the wire made him drop his other hand and then he was hanging onto the fence with his arm, high up enough that if he were to let go or lose his grip, he’d surely break something.

Suddenly the entire fence rattled and Simon had to hold on tightly not to be thrown off.

A man was standing on the top of the fence, walking like it was a balancing beam. He spotted Simon and sat down, the tips of his boots stopping right before Simon’s face.

“Need some help?”

Simon knew about stranger danger.

He kept quiet.

“Is that your ball?” asked the stranger. He had a thin moustache that looked almost like a pencil drawing.

Silence.

“This is the part where you say something. You see, Simon, in order to have a conversation, you have to take part too, that’s kind of how these things go, you know."

Simon ignored him. He wiped his bloody palm against his jeans and then grabbed the fence again, finding a place for his foot. He moved out of the way of the man and kept climbing until he was in reach of his ball. The moment he pulled to tear it away from the fence was the moment his foot slipped.

Simon could barely register the shock before the ground started to approach him much too fast for his liking— 

“ ** _Settle down!_ ** _”_

Simon’s face did not meet the ground as he expected. Instead, he was slowly ... floating?

Not knowing what to do, or how to react, Simon did the only thing that comforted him. He squeezed his stress ball.

The orphanage’s bells rang out, announcing lunch. It didn’t really matter, the food was always terrible regardless.

“Oh. Well, it seems you have somewhere to be. I suggest you hurry along, Simon. Wouldn’t want to be late, now would we?” the man asked, giving him a crooked smile.

Simon nodded.

He didn’t know why.

It wasn’t until he was back inside that he realized something.

He had never told the strange man his name.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The Mage?” 
> 
> “That’s me.”
> 
> “The mage of what?”
> 
> “Just the Mage.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't technically own it. This chapter is kinda weird, but like, it's cause I wanted to go along with the excerpts in Fangirl, and like, Harry Potter gets like 7 chapters of build up before he's at Hogwarts, but by chapter 3 of the Mage's Heir, Simon's met FRIGGING BAZ ALREADY, so it's weird and rushed, but I hope you guys like it!

Simon didn’t think about the strange man for a long time. Until he saw him again.

He wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but when he went to brush his teeth in the morning a few weeks after the incident, he thought he saw him in the mirror. 

He kept showing up seemingly out of nowhere in places that Simon found odd. Once, Simon caught sight of him while he was on a windowsill, perching like a raven when Simon was on clean-up duty in the dining hall. Another time he was in the rafters of the large empty space that the adults called the “gym”. Simon didn’t know how he got up there. Lots of boys had tried to climb to such high heights, and none of them could manage. 

Simon wondered if the strange man with the pencil-thin moustache would ever let his feet touch the ground, because he wanted to ask him what he wanted so that Simon’s life could stop being a game of Where’s Waldo?, and he’d leave him alone. 

After seeing him hanging from the poorly supported drapes of the boys’ shower, he asked the administrator about him. 

“Simon, I don’t understand. You get into fights all the time, and now you’re pulling down shower curtains?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Who else could it have been, Simon?”

“Waldo.”

“Waldo?”

Simon nodded. “Waldo, the man with the weird moustache.”

“Simon, what are you talking about?” The woman’s venomous nails reached out for him. He tried not to flinch. He did. That didn’t stop her from grabbing onto his shoulder.

_Don’t touch me._

“Are you seeing things?”

Simon couldn’t have been seeing things. Illusions didn’t bring down shower curtains. They didn’t drop sticks from kitchen ceiling fans into sinks, splashing you in dirty soap water. The stick was gone when Simon had mopped up the floor. Illusions couldn’t kick you in the head while dangling from a tree branch.

“Simon?”

Simon didn’t know what to say. Nothing sounded like the right thing. If he mentioned the other incidents, she would think he was mad. If he just said he knew Waldo, the mystery man, was real because he just _was_ , she would think he wasn’t taking responsibility for his own mistakes.

“Never mind,” he said.

He never mentioned the strange man to anyone again.

That didn’t mean he stopped seeing him.

Waldo didn’t speak to him again, not since the first time. But he left him things. A stick, which was weird, to say the least, so Simon threw it away. He left him pieces of paper with bad jokes on them and dice with faded dots. 

Simon would close his eyes at night sometimes and see twinkling eyes and strange moustaches and he was pretty sure it wasn’t healthy. 

* * *

One night, as Simon was climbing into the small, cramped bed that he shared with two other large boys, he felt something brush his ankle.

Simon bent down to see underneath the bed. With no sheet to lift up, it wasn’t hard to notice that there were two glowing orbs that sent him crab-walking backwards. 

“Morgana, Simon, you act as though you’ve never seen me before.”

It was Waldo.

“Waldo?”

Had he said that aloud?

The strange man crawled out from underneath the bed and pointed a stick at himself. **_“Into thin air!”_** The dust that had been clinging to the man’s robes disappeared in an instant. “Much better. Now Simon, will you continue to stare at me like that, or will we have a normal conversation this time ‘round?”

“You’re … you’re real.”

“Last I checked, yes.” The man’s moustache moved strangely when he laughed.

“I ... I started to doubt you were ...”

“Gave up on me? That’s not very nice, is it, Simon? Now!” The man clapped his hands loudly and Simon flinched. The boys’ room was like a minefield at night, the slightest creak could set them off. He was surprised no one had woken up yet. “Ah, lower my voice, right?”

“H-how do you know my name?”

“Speak up, even if we do have to be a bit quieter, that’s no reason to sound mute!” Waldo said. “Has no one taught you how to raise your voice?” He shook his head. “We’ll fix that.”

“We?” Simon echoed.

“Ah, right!” For someone who knew he should be quiet, seeing all the boys ranging from the age of five to seventeen who were fast asleep, he wasn’t very good at it. “Where did I put it?” Waldo rummaged through his pockets, before pulling out a card and holding it out to Simon. “There you go, so you can stop calling me Waldo.”

Simon frowned. It was hard to see in the dark, and worse, it was in cursive. He squinted. “The Mage?” 

“That’s me.”

“The mage of what?”

“Just the Mage.”

That sounded stupid.

“I find it to be rather cool, it’s a title, very fancy-like.”

Had Simon said something aloud he hadn’t meant to again?

“You’re easy to read. Your face is an open book.” Waldo— _The Mage_ smiled at him.

Simon couldn’t remember the last time someone had done that in his direction.

Not sure what to do with himself, he clenched his stress ball and looked back down at the card. “You’re the headmaster of . . . Hogwarts?”

“Watford,” The Mage corrected. “It’s a common mistake.” 

“What’s Watford?”

The Mage’s eyes gleamed with something Simon didn’t understand. “How about I show you?” 

Before Simon could protest, the Mage placed his hand on his shoulder and said **_“Be there in a jiffy!”_**

Simon felt like he was going to throw up. The whole world slanted. He held onto his ball so hard that he could feel the outline of his nails in his palm. The Mage held onto his arm tightly and he was pretty sure something slipped into his hand, but he couldn’t be certain. There was a mix of colours and flashes and then as suddenly as it began, it was over. 

“Ah, guess I should’ve warned you.” The Mage didn’t sound very apologetic. He seemed very amused by the shade of green Simon’s face was turning.

Simon was standing in front of large gates and— was that a _moat_? He was cold, with the cool night air biting at his skin, his too-small pants that stopped at his ankles with holes in them barely passing as pyjamas, and the fact that he was shirtless did nothing to help him. He was going to dent his ball at this rate, but he kept squeezing it, when he felt something cold against his other palm. He looked down and saw a metal chain. It was hard to see what was on it, but it was sharp and digging into his palm. Before he could ask the Mage about it, the man with the moustache was speaking again. 

“Welcome to the Watford School of Magicks!” The Mage breathed in deeply and sighed contently. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Simon had no words.

“Come on along now, we don’t have that much time, it’s late at night, and the students are asleep.” He guided Simon with a hand on his shoulder. Simon was in too much shock to protest.

Looking behind him, Simon saw a large red gate. It was strange to see a fence that didn’t remind him of prison. He looked forward again and a drawbridge came down. Walking along it, he felt like he was in a dream. He was brought to the interior and there were so many large buildings. A chapel, a leaning tower covered in old vines, a barn, what looked like a castle, there was so much to take in and so little time as the Mage hurried him along.

“The semester starts soon,” The Mage said, “and if you want, you have a place here.”

“But,” Simon said, “where is here?”

“Watford, silly, weren’t you listening to me?” the Mage asked. He patted Simon’s shoulder just as Simon caught sight of a football field. “Now listen, I’ve technically already placed your name in the Crucible, so that’s been taken care of, you’ll just be missing out on the usual ritual. Doesn’t make it less effective, the ceremony is more for show, to make it extra dramatic and such. Some students are here early, but the majority of them will be arriving tomorrow morning. So, until then, I’ll let you sleep in my quarters. Don’t you feel honoured? However, I _will_ have to kick you out once the ceremony has happened, and then you’ll have time to settle in—”

“I have a question.”

The Mage paused to take a breath for the first time. “Yes, Simon?”

Simon had many questions. What was the Crucible tradition? What was Watford? Had he just said Magicks? As in, wands and spells and potions magic? He still didn’t know how the Mage knew his name. And settle in? Simon hadn’t yet agreed to anything and he didn’t have anything with him but a stress ball. Was he dreaming? Had he hit his head? This seemed too good to be true. Simon? A magic-user? Even if magic _did_ exist, what was the likelihood _Simon_ of all people would have it?

“Do I get my own bed?”

The Mage laughed, using Simon’s body for support as he leaned on him. Simon was off-balance, but he couldn’t help the smile from surfacing on his lips. 

Nothing made sense, not really, but he was okay with that. This dream, whatever it was, was amazing and Simon wasn’t going to question it. Not yet.


End file.
